Margaret Atwood

by Shannon Hengen

  1995. “True Trash.” The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English. Selected and ed. Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1997. 247-266.

  1996. True Trash. [Electronic resource]. Bredbury, UK: National Library for the Blind, 1997. Computer data (2 files: 25, 26 kb).

  1997. “Underbrush Man.” Prairie Fire 17.4 (Winter 1997): 6-14. Short story.

  1998. Vera spazzatura: E altri racconti. Milan: La Tartaruga edizioni, 1997. Italian translation of Wilderness Tips by Francesca Avanzini.

  1999. Vulgo, Grace. São Paulo, Brasil: Marco Zero, 1997. Portuguese translation of Alias Grace by Maria J. Silveira.

  2000. “While He Writes, I Feel as If He Is Drawing Me.” St. Paul [MN]: Hungry Mind Press, 1997 ©1996. 1 sheet. Broadside. From Alias Grace. Printed at Midnight Paper Sales for the occasion of Margaret Atwood’s reading at the Hungry Mind on 8 January 1997. Limited edition of 90 numbered copies signed by the author.

  2001. “The Writer: A New Canadian Life-Form.” New York Times Book Review 18 May 1997: 9, 39:1. In an essay adapted from her acceptance speech for the 1997 National Arts Club Medal for Literature, Atwood discusses growing up in Canada and what it was like to be a writer in Canada, “a country in which you were relegated to a minor literary subcategory just by being a citizen of it.” She also discusses the state of the novel in the 1990s and suggests that many are “shovels”— self-help books disguised as fiction.

  2002. “A Writer’s Life: This Master Storyteller Is Still Childhood Self, Poking Things to See What Happens.” F Digest 151.908 (1997): 61-62.

  Adaptations of Atwood’s Works

  2003. Music for Art Galleries. [Sound recording] Kitchener, ON: Clover Recordings, [1997?]. 1 sound disc. “All songs composed by Timothy Rempel.…Includes song with words from the novel Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood.” Principally electronic music.

  Quotations

  2004. “[Quote].” Books in Canada 26.3 (April 1997): 12-13. In review of James Re-aney’s The Box Social and Other Stories, reviewer quotes Atwood’s comment on one of these, “The Bully”: “Strong in local atmosphere, which is not used however for the purposes of strict realism, combining the comic with the pathetic, proceeding by an associative dream language, resolving itself through image rather than through plot alone, it offered us a whole new way of looking at the possibilities of the world available to us….Without ‘The Bully,’ my fiction would have followed other paths. If there are such things as ‘key’ reading experiences, ‘The Bully’ was certainly one of mine.” Reproduced from back cover of Reaney’s The Box Social and Other Stories.

  2005. “[Quote].” Chattanooga Free Press (TN) 16 March 1997: Section: Travel: L5. Article by Julie Johnson titled “Town Talk” begins with Atwood quote. “In the spring, at the end of the day you should smell like dirt.”

  2006. “[Quote].” Globe and Mail 25 June 1997: D1. After being named Author of the Year by the Canadian Booksellers Association, Atwood was quoted as saying: “I thought I was a bit over the hill to be given an award for my body…of work.” The award was worth $2,000 and may have reflected the more than 100,000 Canadian sales of Alias Grace.

  2007. “[Quote].” The Guardian (London) 3 December 1997: 17. In an article titled “Much Ado about Nothing,” Atwood is quoted on Canada’s “smaller neighbor syndrome”: “If the national illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.”

  2008. “[Quote].” Halifax Daily News 12 January 1997: 49. Atwood is quoted on being Canadian: “In this country you can say what you like because no one will listen to you anyway.”

  2009. “[Quote].” M2 Presswire 13 October 1997. Available from Lexis-Nexis. In an article discussing the forthcoming Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations [see 2023], the writer quotes Atwood on deconstructionism: “Nobody was able to explain to me clearly (what deconstructionism was). The best answer I got was from a writer who said ‘Honey, it’s bad news for you and me.’”

  2010. “[Quote].” New York Times 7 December 1997: Section: 6: 89. An article on Uni-tarianism quotes an earlier interview with Atwood “in which she said that if she ever decided to have a religious life, she would do it with the Unitarian church; the only problem was that the music was terrible.”

  2011. “[Quote].” People 24 March 1997: Section: Picks & Pans. A payout in the high 6 figures may have been the main reason Atwood sold the film rights for Alias Grace to Jodie Foster’s Egg Pictures, but it wasn’t the only reason. “I love the name of the production company….I’ve always been fond of eggs. I put eggs in my books a lot. It caught my attention immediately.”

  2012. “[Quote].” The Province [Vancouver] 28 October 1997: B9. On being surrounded by throngs pressing her for photos after she obtained 13th honorary degree from the University of Ottawa: “I begin to feel like Minnie Mouse at Disneyland, with a lot of happy students and Moms and Dads getting busy with the flash bulbs.”

  2013. “[Quote].” Quill and Quire 63.3 (March 1997): 15. Atwood weighing into debate about public lending rights: “Libraries want a free lunch, and they want our lunch.”

  2014. “[Quote].” San Francisco Chronicle 16 March 1997: Section: Sunday Review: 2. Atwood at a recent City Arts and Lectures appearance on the offhand way she began Alias Grace, noting that she was on European tour for another book when the first scene popped into mind. “It came to me vividly in the way that scenes often do. I wrote it down on a piece of hotel writing paper. It was much the same as the opening scene of the novel as it now exists. I recognized the locale…and the female figure in it….I thought it was a very bad idea for a novel, but this is what I usually think about my ideas for novels. The ones I actually write are the ones that overcome my own taste and judgement, and insist on being written anyway. So after a while I continued on with the writing.”

  2015. “[Quote].” The Spectator [Hamilton, ON] 13 February 1997: E9. Feminist Naomi Wolf reports that when Margaret Atwood asked women what they feared from men, they said, “We’re afraid they’ll kill us.” When men were asked [what they feared about women], they said, “We’re afraid they’ll laugh at us.” This quote is reproduced from Men Are Lunatics, Women Are Nuts!! Compiled with an introduction by Ronald B. Shwartz. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1996: 14.

  2016. “[Quote].” Star Tribune [Minneapolis, MN] 3 November 1997: Section: Entertainment: 1F. Reference to comment made in late 1970s when Atwood compared the relationship between Canada and the United States to a one-way mirror: “They watch us, but we are too busy looking at ourselves to return the gaze.”

  2017. “[Quote].” Sunday Telegraph 2 March 1997: Section: Books: 15. On the problems of becoming a poet: “I did not know that ‘poetess’ was an insult…I did not know that wearing black was compulsory….[And] like all twenty-one year old poets, I thought I would be dead by 30. Sylvia Plath had not set a very helpful example. For a while there, you were made to feel that…you could not really be serious about it unless you had made at least one suicide attempt….I no longer feel I will be dead at 30, now it is 60.”

  2018. “[Quote].” The Tennessean 1 June 1997: Section: Home: 1G. Atwood on gardening: “Gardening is not a rational act.”

  2019. “[Quote].” Time 4 August 1997: Section: International Edition: 22. Atwood on Americans (as first spoken to a Parliamentary Committee): “About the only position they have adopted towards us, country to country, has been the missionary position, and we were not on top. I guess that is why the national wisdom vis-à-vis them has so often taken the form of lying still, keeping your mouth shut and pretending you like it.”

  2020. “[Quote].” Toronto Star 3 March 1997: Section: News: A1. In article entitled “Today’s Megaday to Vote on Future Metro: Residents Speak Out about City of 2.3 Million.” Nicolaas Van Rijn quotes Atwood who mused that the Toronto mega-city may have been inspired by “Larry, Curly and Al Leach” [Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs].

  2021. “[Quote].” Toronto Star 31 October 1997: Sect
ion: Opinion: A29. Atwood commenting on the nature of Toronto: “We are all immigrants to this place, even those of us that were born here.”

  2022. “[Quote].” Toronto Sun 2 November 1997: Section: News: 2. Report of Atwood commenting on Toronto mayoralty candidates Mel Lastman, the eventual winner whom she opposed, and Barbara Hall, whom she supported: “We don’t want (Toronto) tidied up into one homogenized shopping mall or parking lot….We don’t want to be sold by our mayor; we want to be served by our mayor. Our mayor will be the mouth we are known by. To represent us, we want a mayor whose foot won’t always be in their mouth.”

  2023. “[Quotes].” The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations. Ed. Peter Kemp. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Atwood is quoted 26 times.

  Interviews

  2024. CASCIATO, Paul. “Canadian Writer Margaret Atwood Wary of Praise.” Reuters World Service 8 January 1997. Atwood comments on positive reviews of Alias Grace—and on losing the Booker.

  2025. DODSON, Danita J. “An Interview with Margaret Atwood.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 38.2 (Winter 1997): 96-104. Atwood feels that The Handmaid’s Tale was produced by studying the oppression of women.

  2026. ENG, Monica. “Alias Atwood: Canadian Novelist Sees Future Writing of the Past.” Chicago Tribune 8 January 1997: Section: Tempo: 2. Atwood answers audience questions at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview as part of the North Suburban Library Foundation’s Literary Circle Series.

  2027. EVENSON, Laura. “Wicked Wit of the North: Margaret Atwood Mines the Ambiguous in Alias Grace.” San Francisco Chronicle 16 January 1997: Section: Daily Datebook: E1. (1151 w). Amusing interview in which Atwood reflects on her life. Includes several anecdotes including the time her high school home economics teacher told the class it could do a special project and could vote on what it could be. Instigated by Atwood, the group decided to put on a home economics opera. “It was about three fabrics—Orlon, Nylon and Dacron,” she said. “I was Dacron. And they all lived with their father, old King Coal, spelled C-O-A-L, because they were all coal derivatives. Along came a natural-fiber character called Sir William Wooly, but he sang an aria about a terrible problem he had: He shrank from washing.”

  2028. GUSSOW, Mel. “The Alternate Personalities of Margaret Atwood.” International Herald Tribune 7 January 1997: Section: Feature: 20. (1267 w). Also in Dallas Morning News 5 January 1997: Section: Arts: 4C. Atwood cherishes her wide international readership. “If we only write books for people writing academic papers, it would be a futile exercise.”

  2029. GZOWSKI, Peter. “Conversations with Writers IV: Margaret Atwood.” The Morningside Years. Toronto: McCelland and Stewart, 1997: 168-176. Interview on occasion of publication of Murder in the Dark. Book also includes CD on which Atwood reads from Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut.

  2030. SALINE, Carol, and Sharon J. WOHLMUTH. “Margaret Atwood and Her Daughter, Margaret Atwood.” Mothers and Daughters. New York: Doubleday, 1997. 62-65. Includes photo of both Margarets.

  2031. SHARP, Iain. “A Writer Wary of Clumsy Dancers.” Sunday Star-Times [Auckland] 23 February 1997: Section: Features. Notes that she can’t write when she’s traveling. “On planes I just behave like everyone else—I eat peanuts, read murder mysteries and look now and again at the in-flight movie.”

  2032. SNELL, Marilyn. “Margaret Atwood.” Mother Jones 22.4 (July-August 1997): 24-27. In the interview Atwood states that she does not write her novels to express her political views (she claims she is a “Red Tory”) and that her primary loyalty is to her art. She characterizes the women in her novels as people under pressure rather than victims. For comment on interview, see Heller, Daniel A. “Margaret At-wood.” English Journal 86.8 (December 1997): 89-90.

  Scholarly Resources

  2033. “Atwood, Margaret.” Who’s Who in Canadian Literature 1997-1998. Comp. Gordon Ripley. Teeswater [ON]: Reference Press, 1997. 8-10. Biography.

  2034. AGUIAR, Sarah Appleton. “Good Girls and Evil Twins: Constructing Zenia in Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride.” Newsletter of the Margaret Atwood Society 19 (Fall-Winter 1997): 5-6, 15-16.

  2035. ANDRASZEK, Katharine. “The Feminist, Political, and Postmodern Aspects to Margaret Atwood.” MA thesis. State University of New York College at Brock-port, 1997. 82 pp.

  2036. BELL, Virginia Ellen. “Narratives of Treason: Postnational Historiographic Tactics and Late Twentieth-Century Fiction in the Americas.” PhD thesis. University of Maryland at College Park, 1997. 292 pp. In chapter four, The Handmaid’s Tale and Carmen Boullosa’s Duerme (Sleeping Beauty) are compared to discourse that produces a critical assessment of NAFTA. All 3 are discursive constructions of regionalism interested in the effects of global restructuring on women. For more see DAI-A 58.11 (May 1998): 4261.

  2037. BENN JONES, Yvonne P. “Dystopian Feminism in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.” MA thesis. Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1997. 76 pp.

  2038. BOHNER, Jennifer Anne. “Sacrificing Solidarity for Self: Exploring Margaret Atwood’s Solitary Feminists.” MA thesis. California State University, Hayward, 1997. 67 pp.

  2039. CAKEBREAD, C. (Caroline Marcus). “Voices from Beyond: Responses to Shakespeare in Six Novels by Contemporary Women Writers.” PhD thesis. University of Birmingham, Shakespeare Institute, 1997. Study of Cat’s Eye along with Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day, Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, Barbara Trapido’s Juggling, Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years, and Marina Warner’s Indigo.

  2040. CALL, Nancy J. “Marriage, Maternity and Beyond in Margaret Atwood’s Novels.” MA thesis. University of Vermont, 1997. 51 pp.

  2041. CANNON, Elizabeth Monroe. “What ‘Violent Violets’ Want: Female Desire in Contemporary Women’s Fiction.” PhD thesis. University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1997. 314 pp. Includes analysis of Lady Oracle. For more see DAI-A 58.07 (January 1998): 2649.

  2043. COMISKEY, B. “You Can Mean More Than One: Age, Gender and Atwood’s Addresses.” Journal of Gender Studies 6.2 (July 1997): 131-142. How Atwood appeals to academic and mainstream, feminist and non-feminist, readers.

  2044. COOPER, Pamela. “‘A Body Story with a Vengeance’: Anatomy and Struggle in The Bell Jar and The Handmaid’s Tale.” Women’s Studies 26.1 (January 1997): 89-124. Both books dwell on women’s use of their own bodies and orifices as imperative to rebellion and subsequent freedom. Both also explore the common topography of gender and how women’s struggle for survival and empowerment can be harnessed through the body. This is apparent in the perverse acts of consumption by the female protagonists in the novels which suggest interiority as a potent expression of will.

  2045. COUPE, Laurence. Myth. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. From Dante to Shakespeare to Atwood, writers have felt the need to draw on archaic narrative patterns. See especially 190-194 for discussion of The Handmaid’s Tale.

  2046. DAVIDSON, Arnold E. Seeing in the Dark: Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye. Toronto: ECW Press, 1997. (Canadian Fiction studies).

  2047. DEERY, June. “Science for Feminists: Margaret Atwood’s Body of Knowledge.” Twentieth-Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 43.4 (1997): 440-486. Focus on Cat’s Eye and The Robber Bride.

  2048. DELVILLE, Michel. “Murdering the Text: Genre and Gender Issues in Margaret Atwood’s Short Short Fiction.” The Contact and the Culmination. Ed. Marc Del-rez, Bénédicte Ledent, and Juliette Dor. Liège, Belgium: L3-Liège Language and Literature, 1997. 57-67. Focus on Murder in the Dark (1983) and Good Bones (1992).

  2049. DeROCCO, David. “Margaret Atwood.” Canadian Superlatives. Virgil, ON; Lewiston, NY: FB Productions, 1997. 1. A literacy exercise focusing on Atwood.

  2050. DODSON, Danita J. “‘We Lived in the Blank White Spaces’: Rewriting the Paradigm of Denial in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.” Utopian Studies 8.2 (Spring 1997): 66-87. Atwood’s novel portrays the United States as founded on a dream of equality and liberty which has been corrupted by marginalizing Native-Americans, African-Americans, and women. Puritan prejudice a
nd conformity are intensified in the fictional Gilead, and those seeking to establish an ideal society have created a place for terror. Atwood suggests in this novel that global human rights will remain a fantasy until the repressive past has been acknowledged.

  2051. DONELSON, Ken. “‘Filth’ and ‘Pure Filth’ in Our Schools: Censorship of Classroom Books in the Last Ten Years.” English Journal 86.2 (February 1997): 21-25. The Handmaid’s Tale is one of those attacked.

  2052. DOSS, Michelle M. “Finding the Goddess Within: The Goddess Archetype in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Robber Bride.” MA thesis. Baylor University, 1997. 109 pp.

  2053. DUNCAN, I. J. “Female Marginality in the Fiction of Margaret Atwood.” PhD thesis. University of Strathclyde, 1997. Atwood portrays her female protagonists as outsiders, either exiles or invaders in their settings. In this study, “I consider Rennie Wilford’s disempowering detachment in Bodily Harm, and the narrator’s subversiveness in The Handmaid’s Tale. It is the creative spirit, I shall argue, which constitutes the most effective resistance to the centralizing tendencies. When the protagonist acknowledges her distinctive creativity, and understands that it will enable her to make connections—with another, with an aspect of her self or her past—she is exploiting her marginality. In my concluding chapter, I summarise my main arguments, relating them to Atwood’s most recent novel, Alias Grace.” (Author). For more see Index to Theses Accepted for Higher Degrees by the Universities of Great Britain and Ireland 48 (1999): 2697.

  2054. EAGLETON, Mary. “Feminism and the Death of the Author: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.” British Journal of Canadian Studies 12.2 (1997): 281-297.

  2055. EASUN, Sue. “‘The Ice Is Its Own Argument’: A Canadian Critic Takes a Second Look at Bad Boy and Her Own Modest Ambitions.” Canadian Children’s Literature 87 (1997): 5-14. Atwood’s theories of national identity used to explicate Diana Wieler’s novel.

  2056. FEUER, Lois. “The Calculus of Love and Nightmare: The Handmaid’s Tale and the Dystopian Tradition.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 38.2 (1997): 83-95. The novel affirms distrust for any unquestioned source of truth, which is a significant attitude in all dystopias. Dystopias offer worlds where the characters can choose freedom or happiness, but not both. The Handmaid’s Tale has been most often compared to Orwell’s 1984, but Atwood’s story offers a more vivid reality and a subtle feminist statement. Women in Atwood’s novel have a central sense of the individual’s importance. Individuality is crushed in 1984 but forms the source of politics and character in The Handmaid’s Tale.